~What Am I Feeling?~
~Chapter 48- A Second Christmas At The Potters~
Scorpius stepped off the train, with Albus on his arm for the first time. He didn't know why he looked around, expecting to see his father because deep down, he knew he wouldn't be there. His father probably didn't want to ever see him again. That didn't matter anymore though, Scorpius told himself; he didn't need his father anymore. Albus was more than enough for him.
Albus noticed Scorpius' discomfort and brushed blond locks out of Scorpius' face so he could see his eyes. Only Albus could sense so easily when Scorpius was down, "Are you okay?"
Scorpius forced a small smile, "Yeah, I'm fine."
Albus shook Scorpius' arm supportively and planted a kiss on the smaller boy's temple. Scorpius had been finding it hard the past few weeks and Albus knew this. He put on a brave face, but he was considerably more quiet and buried himself in studying more. He still acted more or less the same with Albus but he avoided the subject of his parents. All Albus could do was reassure him of his love and maybe provide him with a home. He hoped Scorpius would feel much better when he came back with him for Christmas.
Holding hands, they received a look they were all too familiar with, but from the parents and older relatives this time. They simply moved on as if it hadn't affected them though, which it didn't of course. It was just people being curious.
After weaving through what felt like thousands of people, Albus finally spotted his parents, along with Teddy who must have come to see them and Lily who had already found them. Albus pushed Scorpius through the crowd until they reached them.
Teddy instantly took Scorpius in his arms and hugged him tightly, his hair turning a warm red colour, "How are you Scorpius?"
"I'm okay… yeah." Scorpius said breathlessly as he separated from Teddy and glanced back at Albus.
Ginny was the next to capture Scorpius in a hug, squeezing him and making Scorpius squeal in surprise, "Oh I've been so worried about you! I'm so sorry for all you've been through but… I hope you're happy now, with Albus."
"I'm unbelievably happy with Albus." Scorpius said honestly, looking back again at his boyfriend who was grinning.
"Scorpius," Harry said with a strong voice and the young boy looked up at him nervously, "You're very welcome in our family… you're an amazing boy and you make our Albus happy. You should be happy too and we'll do everything we can to make you happy."
"Thank you… I don't mean to intrude though… I'll stay with George and Teddy, if they don't mind of course, if it gets too crowded…"
Harry clapped a hand on Scorpius' shoulder, "Of course not, we've got more than enough room. And we want you with us for Christmas, you're family."
Scorpius' eyes brightened as he looked between the Potters, "Really?"
"Yes!" Ginny chuckled, stroking a hand through Scorpius' hair, "We would be more than proud to have you as part of our family."
"Oh, I guess I have a new brother!" Lily said happily, "Though we should really call you brother in law because that would be weird if you and Albus were brothers and together…"
"Oh Merlin Lils, only you think of things like that." Albus frowned, enfolding his arms around Scorpius' waist and hugging him from behind.
Harry and Ginny watched their son and his boyfriend with fascination. Of course they weren't used to seeing them like that but it wasn't that. It was more how comfortable they were together, the way they fell into each other's arms with such ease. And the way they looked at each other. It was so interesting. It also made their hearts warm, being able to see their son so in love and obviously so happy.
~X~
They arrived back at Grimmauld Place and it suddenly felt different to Scorpius. The house which he stepped into didn't feel the same as it did when he visited before. Before it was just Albus' house with pictures of Albus' family and it was the place where Albus grew up. But suddenly… it felt like home. Scorpius felt safe under this roof, like the way he felt at Hogwarts. He used to feel that way in the Manor too, until this Summer. The house felt like it was closing in on him all Summer, getting smaller and smaller. Slowly the library and his bedroom didn't feel like the sanctuaries they were before.
But here… here it felt comfortable. He was home. Home with a family who actually loved him and wanted him there… Glancing back at Albus, his lover gave him a warm smile and another wave of comfort overcame him.
"James is coming back this evening," Harry told them, "We had to stop him from inviting his current girlfriend." Scorpius cringed slightly, Grimmauld Place feeling slightly less safe all of a sudden.
"Another Spanish one?" Lily questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Another Spanish one…" Harry confirmed as they walked down the hall, leaving the suitcases at the bottom of the stairs.
"The Spanish ones always seem to be the worst as well…" Albus rolled his eyes. He looked to Scorpius to see if he was okay and could see that Scorpius had tensed at the mention of James' name.
Scorpius felt Albus' worrying eyes on him and piped into the conversation, "Considering he lives in Spain at the moment is it such a surprise…? And it's not just the Spanish ones."
"That's true. Annabella Ebon was Scottish and she was one of the worst."
"I don't think it would be wise to insult James' girlfriends in front of him this evening." Ginny said, shaking her head and walking past her family so she was in front.
She led them into the kitchen and everyone sat down at the dining table. Teddy had gone home for a while, where he was going to meet George and then come for dinner later. The familiar Christmas decorations covered the dining room. The Christmas tree was sitting in the corner with sparkling ball-balls and colourful, glowing lights. Little Santas whizzed about the room and fake snow rained down from the ceiling. Scorpius' father would never have things like these up for any time of the year. Scorpius scolded himself; he needed to stop thinking about Malfoy Manor and his father.
"Scorpius, I've tidied one of the rooms for you. It's quite big and you can have it whenever you come to stay." Ginny said casually while starting to get pans and plates out to make dinner most likely.
Scorpius' eyes brightened. For whenever he stayed? That meant it was permanent. That he was welcome anytime…
"But mum! I thought me and Scor were going to stay in the same room… he always has whenever he's been before!" Albus protested, a whine in his voice.
"Albus, Scorpius is your boyfriend and we don't know what you could get up to if we let you sleep in the same room," Ginny said harshly while Scorpius flushed in embarrassment, "If you had a girlfriend coming to stay over, I would do exactly the same thing."
"But we share a room at school, just us two…" Albus loosely argued.
"You do?" Harry exclaimed.
Albus pressed his lips together when he realised what he had said and Scorpius hissed, "Will you be quiet, Al?"
"Sorry…"
"I think we'll just pretend we didn't hear that…"
"While you're under our roof and you're still teenagers, we'll decide where you sleep thank you." Ginny said snappily and Lily spent the whole time laughing to herself.
Later on, screams and giggles were echoing through the household. Ginny huffed to herself as she cooked, getting frustrated about all the work she was doing while her family were running around, messing around… including her husband.
Lily had insisted on playing a game and Harry suggested an old Muggle game he used to watch his cousin play. It was where there was a base and someone would guard it. The others would hide and have to get back to the base without getting caught by the guard, if they did, they would have to go to prison. Once they got back to the base, they were safe. Other team mates could also release each other from the prison.
They had been playing it for the past three hours and for the majority of the time Albus had been the guard. He was pretty good at guarding the base, maybe he had a Keeper mentality deep within him. Only Lily had got there so far in an incident where Albus caught Scorpius and ended up snogging him senseless. Lily rushed past them and reached base. At least it wasn't Harry who saw that though…
Right now, Albus was standing in front of base, James' bed which was now messed up, talking to Lily who was sitting on it the bed, waiting.
"Gobey is a way better Keeper than Bensen! There is a reason the Harpies have the best goals scores of the season." Lily tutted, tilting her nose to the sky.
"No way! The reason they have the best scores of this season is because they have brilliant Chasers. Gobey does nothing because all the Chasers keep the Quaffle down the opposite side of the pitch." Albus argued with a pout.
"What are you talking about? Did you see that save against the Bombers in September? Starfish and Stick reversed. Reversed! Who pulls that off?"
"That was by accident! He fe-"
Albus suddenly felt something tickling the back of his thighs and Albus looked down when he saw his dad crawling beneath him. Albus laughed and tapped his dad, telling him to go to the prison and sat on his dad's back. Still giggling, Albus was distracted when Scorpius rushed past, jumping on the bed next to Lily as she cheered.
"Oh fuck!" Albus screeched, throwing his head back.
"No swearing Albus…" Harry chuckled as he stood up and started making his way to the prison, Albus' room.
"That was so planned!" Albus growled as he followed his father to the prison so he could stop anyone rescuing him.
"Well yes, it was."
Harry sat in the prison, chatting to his son. Albus was on high alert though, glancing at James' door to see if Lily or Scorpius were coming to try and rescue Harry.
Suddenly, Scorpius came out of no where, jumping on Albus' back and putting his hands over the brunette's eyes. Albus was startled and momentarily stepped back, when Lily skidded into the prison and tapped Harry's release. It gave Albus time to rearrange himself again and he pulled Scorpius' hands from over his eyes.
Albus started to chase his dad down the stairs, Scorpius bouncing on his back, though Albus hooked his arms around Scorpius' legs so he didn't fall. Scorpius was laughing in Albus' ear and he hadn't thought of his parents since the beginning of the game… he was so happy.
Harry sprinted into the kitchen and dining room, Albus with Scorpius soon following and Lily also chasing behind to see what happened.
Ginny gasped as they bashed past her neatly laid table and threw a tablecloth onto the floor in anger, "Stop! Now!"
The bubbling teenagers and parent came to a halt and all groaned in annoyance.
"Honestly! You're mad all of you! I've been down here cooking all afternoon and you've all been messing around upstairs!" Ginny crossed her arms in a huff, "And you!" She glared at her husband who had to hide his smirk, "I honestly feel like I have an extra child! It's absolutely ridiculous."
"But mum, I just need to get dad and then it will all be over…" Albus said innocently, feigning puppy eyes.
Before Ginny could snap back, the floo sounded in the other room. Moments later, George and Teddy walked into the room with idiotic grins on their faces.
"Great, two more childish idiots." Ginny mumbled to herself, turning back to her cooking.
"I don't know what you've got stuck up your bum, Gins," George sniggered, heading towards Scorpius, "Hey kiddo."
Scorpius beamed and spread his arms out for Teddy who carried Scorpius off Albus' back into his large arms, "It's so good to see you George." Scorpius said as he hugged the redhead.
"Oh, you too… I've been so worried about you."
Everyone seemed to calm down a bit and sat at the table while Ginny started to serve the food. They made light conversation, mainly between George and the teens catching up.
"I don't know where James is, he said he'd be here for dinner." Ginny said, concerned.
"He can warm it up when he gets here…"
As if answering their thoughts, the sound of flames flaring rung in the air. Lily jumped out her seat and rushed into the other room to greet her brother.
Albus stayed, watching Scorpius who was noticeably anxious. All he could do was weave his fingers with Scorpius' and caress his hand to comfort him.
James appeared in the doorway and everyone stood to greet him with hugs and kisses. Ginny made a fuss over how he had grown his hair out and Lily yelled at him about his new girlfriend. George made a joke or two and Harry just told his son it was nice to see him and that he had missed him.
It came to Albus and Scorpius and James looked awkwardly at them. He hugged Albus, clapping his brother on the back, "Nearly finished Hogwarts now, eh? Still wondering how you got into Ravenclaw."
"Still wondering how you didn't get put in the Forbidden Forest." Albus stuck his tongue out.
"Oi. Good one," James turned to Scorpius and gave a small smile. Scorpius returned a nervous smile when James put a hand on his shoulder, "It's nice to see you, Scorpius."
"I-it's nice to see you too." Scorpius said quietly, trying to keep his eyes from casting away.
~X~
Scorpius and James didn't speak much through dinner or when the family stayed up and talked around the fire. Scorpius was still slightly scared if he was honest… James had hurt him and it was natural he would have his guard up. But the few words they had said to each other, although awkward, were at least friendly and polite which was something they had never shared before.
But the next morning, James invited Scorpius to play a game of chess after breakfast. Shocked, Scorpius accepted and scurried upstairs to get changed. When he returned, James was setting up the chess set, Albus sitting in the corner watching.
"Just a warning, you're going to get absolutely thrashed James… Scorpius is so amazing at chess, it's actually annoying. He always beats me…" Albus said, half grinning, half giving Scorpius teasing looks.
"Great… looking forward to getting beaten." James grunted, he liked to win but if he thought about it, of course Scorpius would beat him.
"I'll go easy on you." Scorpius said hesitantly but with a bit of banter in his voice.
"I think you'll have to go very easy on me! We should have you play Uncle Ron one day… He fancies himself as the champion of Wizard's chess and Muggle chess for that matter… You could probably give him a run for his money."
"Well, you can judge that when we start playing…"
James smirked, "All ready."
Albus forced himself off the sofa and stretched, "Well, I'll leave you two it." He pecked Scorpius' cheek on the way past and muttered a 'see you in a bit'.
The first few minutes were spent in a relative silent, with only them speaking to order their pieces around the board. Scorpius was nervous and when he was nervous he didn't know what to say. James was also nervous, but only because he couldn't forget about all the wrong he had done to Scorpius and he worried that Scorpius would never forgive him.
"U-um… So how are NEWTs going?" James asked hesitantly, looking at the blonde through his lashes.
"They're going fine so far, thank you…" Scorpius said, relieved that James had started a conversation, "They've been hard work but I hope I'll be fine…"
"You're clever… You'll do fine…" James nodded and then took a deep breath for the next question, "How about you and Albus? Have you had any trouble at school?"
"Uh…" Scorpius' eyes were wide, taken aback that James was asking about he and Albus, "N-no not really… Everyone's been really nice about it."
"Oh… that's good," James breathed and then finally spat out, "I'm really sorry about the way I treated you… I know it's unforgivable but I just want you to know I really regret what I did…" Scorpius opened his mouth to speak but James continued with his apology, "I guess I've just always thought that was the attitude I was supposed to have towards Malfoys and I just stuck with it… even if by the end I didn't even know why I was doing it… That was just part of it though…" James admitted with a sigh, "I guess there was a bit of jealousy there too… Me and Albus had always been so close and to see someone else just as close to him hurt me… I thought Albus had replaced me and I just naturally resented you for that."
There was a moment of quiet as Scorpius let it sink in. He didn't expect that at all. Though he thought he knew and understood James slightly more. He could never forget the things that James said and did to him but he could at least give James a chance to redeem himself, "Queen to D4," Scorpius said firmly and the Queen slid across the board, destroying James' Bishop in it's space, "I didn't know you felt that way…"
"Nor does Albus but… can you not tell him? I just… I just don't want him to know that…" James pleaded while running his fingers through his hair.
"I won't tell him…" Scorpius put on a smile for James, "Thank you. For apologising and explaining… I hope we can be friends now."
James also smiled, "Yeah… yeah me too."
~X~
Scorpius walked through the front door of 90 Diagon Alley, gazing around in fascination. The shop used to be a sweet shop which closed down shortly after the war in a period of economic struggle. Although fairly big, the shop had never been bought again, probably due to the price and the fact it was opposite one of the most extravagant shops on the street, Weasley Wizard Wheezes, and very overshadowed.
This was the shop which was to be Scorpius' future… The dream which had consumed his mind since the day he and Teddy met and started planning. As he walked through the shop, his dreams seemed to become more of a reality and a sense of security locked him in.
The place was unorganised and messy, but the potential was there and it was obvious Teddy had been doing a lot of work with it. There was a half-finished counter in the middle which looked like it needed to be varnished and decorated. A record player sat on top of it, a record already sitting in it: Bowie Scorpius noticed. Scorpius would have to remind Teddy that he would need to move that one day, as they couldn't have something like that out with young Wizards and Witches testing wands.
Teddy had marked out areas for sofas and there were different furnishing magazines scattered out across the dusty floor. Hanging up on the wall was a wooden board which was still in progress, with information pinned up about different wand wood, cores, lengths and rigidity. Scorpius didn't know whether it was for Teddy's own research, or would be for the wand-buyers themselves.
The most noticeable part of the room, and the thing which had Scorpius admiring it for ages was the decorations on the ceilings. There was a huge chandelier looking object attached from the ceiling with bits and bobs hanging from it. Pieces of mirrors, what Scorpius suspected was phoenix feathers, ribbons and jewels dangled down in a clump, yet it strangely looked rather spectacular. It was something Teddy created of course; Teddy was oddly artistic and for some reason, it just seemed to fit.
"You haven't even seen it with the lights…" Teddy turned the corners of his lips as he lifted his wand to the ceiling. With a simple 'Lumos', the whole ceiling started glittering like stars and the light reflecting off the pieces of mirrors, causing the whole room to glow.
"Wow…" Scorpius breathed in delight, glancing around, not knowing where to look exactly. Every inch of the room was sparkling, "It's magical…"
"That's the point," Teddy said, "I thought that so many young children are going to come in, especially from Hogwarts and everything, to start their magical experience. And what better place to start it…"
"Teddy… that's amazing," Scorpius couldn't stop beaming, "You did this all? All by yourself?"
"Well, George has helped a lot too…" Teddy admitted, jumping up on the counter and urging Scorpius to follow, "He's done all the measurements and bought the shelves and started making the desk… He gave me the idea of doing something artistic."
Scorpius looked up at the 'chandelier' again, "Phoenix feathers, right?"
"Yeah… George suggested I have other cores up there, but I thought it would be a bit weird to have dragon heartstrings on there and even unicorn hairs… Plus, they would really kick up a stink eventually… I was thinking about getting a phoenix though, one day… but they cost a lot and this place is already costing a lot to do up… It would be done quicker, but I have to work full-time at Wheezes now to pay for this and for food and bills at home with George… He always offers to pay for it all, but I don't want to take from him like that, y'know?"
Scorpius hitched himself up onto the desk next to Teddy and eyed the floor guiltily, "I'm sorry I haven't been around to help, Teddy…"
"Eh, it's no problem. I know one day you will and that's what's important, right?" Teddy nudged Scorpius' shoulder playfully, "You've been going through a lot and you're still at school! Plus, you can't make wands till you've got your wandlore degree… So there's not much for you to do at the moment. If I work on it now, it means it will be opened sooner…"
"I promise, when I leave Hogwarts and get a job, I'll send money to you to help and everything."
"Thanks… That would be great Scorpius. If you get onto a wandlore course, you can start to trade and deal with wands… Oh Merlin that's perfect!" Teddy exclaimed suddenly, startling Scorpius, "I'll make wands… while you trade and buy materials for constructing them… that will work!"
"Why can't we just make all the wands ourselves?"
"Because it takes practice and if we want to sell wands, we'll need very good quality ones from the start… It doesn't matter if we haven't made them ourselves, as long as we know each individual wand and find it the right witch or wizard, we'll be fine. It'll be a good few years after you finish the course that you'll be able to make proper wands, high-quality wands. I still can't now…"
"Do you think it'll work, Teddy?" Scorpius said doubtfully, "I mean… it seems like an awful lot of work over a long period of time until we'll get comfortable in the business…"
"George has helped me with this too… He's made a business plan for us, basically. He thinks that even though towards the beginning, we won't be making wands ourselves, people will still come to us because it's more practical to come to a wand shop in Diagon Alley then having to travel across England. As long as we have good wands, we should get a good reputation," Teddy hopped off the back of the counter, muttering 'Nox' with the flick of a wand and letting the ceiling return back to usual, "Come on, if you want to help, you can start by helping me sort out some of these wands… I keep getting them in such a mess. I think it'll be good to have you around eventually, because you'll keep the place neat."
Behind the counter was the back of the shop. Shelves stood in view, with long wand boxes stacked on them. There weren't many, about 70 Scorpius guessed. Teddy started taking them all off the shelves and stacking them on the floor, sitting cross legged.
"I'm putting them in groups of core, then from there sorting out the wood and when they're in groups of wood, the wand length. Rigidity I don't think is so important when picking out wands for people… unless you think differently?" Teddy instructed but in a friendly polite tone.
Scorpius took a seat on the floor, making himself comfortable, "No I agree. Though you're more an expert then me."
Teddy chuckled and started passing the boxes to Scorpius, "Cream label is Unicorn Hair, red is Phoenix Feather and green is Dragon Heartstring. The length and wood is written on the label. If they don't have labels, just pass them onto me and I'll tell you what they are… Labels are in the desk so you could write some out."
"I had a question actually… about the wandcore… Are you thinking of only selling, Unicorn, Dragon and Phoenix cores or others as well?"
"I was going to ask your opinion on that actually… I mean I think it's really important to have others as well, just as an option. I'd say the majority of them will be the three main cores, but we should have Veela and maybe a few Kelpie and Dittany wands too… Just in case. I have a two Veela wands in the back… and a Thestral Tail core too, though I don't think we should sell that one…"
"I agree… I mean what if a Witch or Wizard is destined for a Kelpie or Veela wand? Even if they are not the best of wands, they should have the opportunity to acquire one…" Louis had told Scorpius of his troubles with finding a wand. Louis' wand was a Veela core and it was a struggle to find. His sisters both possessed Dragon cores and it was assumed Louis wouldn't need a Veela core. Though when no wand would work for Louis, they finally brought Louis to France to try Veela wands and he found it.
Teddy tilted his head at Scorpius, "Do you believe it's down to destiny, wands? You believe the works of Dalgane? Wand-maker who was convinced there was only one wand for each Wizard which would help them reach their full potential…"
"I think to a certain degree, yes… though I don't think it's just one wand. I think there's more than one, but you're destined to find one of that certain type…"
Their discussion about the destiny of wands and their owners continued for a couple of minutes as they continued to sort the wands.
When they had finished with most of them, Teddy jumped up and held a hand out for Scorpius, "Do you wanna see the back of the shop?"
Scorpius used Teddy's hand to pull him up, "Yeah…"
As they started to walk down the corridor to the back of the shop, Scorpius looked up at Teddy curiously, "What type of wand do you have again?"
"Unicorn Hair, 14 ½ inches, Ebony. Just so happens, George wand is it's brother…" Teddy shrugged.
"No way?" Scorpius' lips gaped.
"Yeah… Apparently that happens with people you destined to be close to…"
"So it must be down to destiny then in some ways?"
Mimicking Scorpius' words, Teddy said, "To a certain degree," Scorpius pouted and Teddy laughed, "No, I do agree that wands containing the same core have owners which end up having a connection… what about you and Albus? Have you ever checked your wands? I swear you have the same core…"
"Yeah, they're both Phoenix Feather… but I doubt they're made from the same feather…" Scorpius said sceptically.
"They might be… I can check next time you're together. How does that sound?"
"Yeah… yeah, that would be good."
They entered a room which was even messier than the front of the shop. Crates with materials were stacked up high and a desk in the corner, with wood and tools sitting on it. On the other side of the room, there was a small table with papers piled across the surface. There was only a few candles around to light up the room so it was quite dark and eerie.
"This is my office type room… I've been sorting out paperwork and making wands here…" Teddy cast a spell to light all the candles up, "Do you want to see the wands I've made?"
Scorpius hummed with excitement and Teddy showed him his desk. Careless of the materials lain over the top, Teddy lifted the wooden surface up and revealing a secret compartment inside the table. There were six boxes there and Teddy slowly lifted them all out.
"This was the first one I made…" Teddy informed him, "It doesn't work at all and looks like shit but I'm keeping it for memories…"
"It's absolutely awful, Teddy." Scorpius chuckled.
"Yeah… I know. But these have been my fairly successful ones… They're not very good, but at least they work."
Scorpius admired Teddy's work," They're not too shabby.. I can't wait to be able to make things like these myself… I just think it's amazing and fascinating… I want to be this skilled too…"
"And you will one day… It will be slow, but you will. And then we'll be the best wand
makers in the whole of the Wizarding world!"
Scorpius felt so much more secure with everything… with his family and relationship and even with his future… All thanks to Christmas with the Potters.
~X~
A/N: So it's been a while since I uploaded the last chapter and I'm sorry for that! A few reasons why, the main being I wrote a chapter to one of my other stories which I haven't updated in forever, 'Double Cherries', go check it out everyone! And as you probably realised, this chapter is very long, as well as the next one being long too and I always like to be ahead by one chapter... I do hope the length has made up for the lack of updating though xD
Nothing else really to say about this chapter except I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Oh, and I hope you all liked the improvement in James' behaviour... I certainly did, it was nice to see another side to him.
Thank you for reviewing Full-Empty-Spirit, esinger, , dietcocacola101 (for reviewing loads and for all the nice things you said!), , Satary, PasDeBadAnkles, Guest (Anonymous), Blue You, MiraclesHappen94 and Albatross (Anonymous)!
Next chapter:: Christmas Day.